changing times

On Monday I stood on line at the Voltaire metro station to add another week's fare to my Navigo card. The line was long and slow and it took forever. Why? Because there were two gypsy kids standing over the fare machines and hovering over the customers while they inserted their Navigo passes and their credit cards into the machine. Most of these patrons were loading up their Navigo cards with fare for the month (November).

I've never seen Romany kids in my neighborhood before. I've also noticed more homeless people than the last time I was here, too. No one wanted to do their transaction with these kids hovering over them, but no one was able to get rid of them. The woman who worked in the fare window told them to go away and they just laughed at her. Then a male worker yelled at them, and again, they didn't leave.

Nothing short of the police could have gotten rid of them, but the police -- ironically -- were busy standing inside the corridors making sure that everyone's Navigo passes were current and trying to catch fare jumpers. Meanwhile, the passengers were being intimidated by these kids who were trying to grab their money while they updated their Navigo cards. Nice.

and a few more...

and here's a couple more photos from the weekend:

10eme - 11eme

Today we turned our clocks back an hour -- no more daylight savings time!

Pascale joined me and we walked from Les Halles over to Canal St. Martin...had lunch at L'Atmosphere and looked in the shops...then walked over to Oberkampf and had drinks at Cafe Charbon. There was a little bit of Halloween energy in Oberkampf as the night began, but nothing like what you see in San Francisco, and maybe more to do with the Day of the Dead tomorrow.

more food...

Sorry for the ongoing food porn, but part of my day was spent shopping at Marché d'Aligres and Monoprix, eating, and then trying to walk enough to burn off all the calories.

Then I went to Gibert Jeune booksellers, one of the rare times I go to the rive gauche (the Fisherman's Wharf of Paris). I make this exception because there's so many fabulous books in that building, mostly at great prices, that I want to take the bookstore with me. I settled on only a few purchases, most notably, "Fahrenheit 451" in bandes dessinnées. Then, to avoid the crush in the awful St. Michel metro station, I walked to République before hopping back on the metro again.

I'm always amazed...

...at how much cheaper it is to buy food in Paris than it is in San Francisco. These groceries cost €27, and it includes a week's supply of coffee, 8 containers of yogurt, a package of smoked ham, veggies and tomatoes for a salad, several rolls of toilet paper, some Dijon mustard, some breakfast grains, a container of "gourmet" olives, milk, mineral water, and a bar of dark chocolate. This would probably cost $40-$45 in the USA, and might not be as good.

Look how great the Muni service was back then!

This video was allegedly filmed a week or so before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The filmmakers mounted a camera on a San Francisco streetcar and went all the way down Market Street to the Ferry Building. Aside from the obviously amazing things in this footage, I was also struck by how frequently the streetcars ran. They're almost bumper to bumper! Anyone who's ever stood i the wind on Market Street waiting for the F car knows that things have changed a lot since then....

And this is just the data they're tracking. . .

Saw this time lapse video of the spread of rising unemployment in the USA. I'm not sure that shopping is going to turn this thing around.